


Homecoming

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Sword Art Online
Genre: Awkwardness, Established Relationship, F/M, Light Angst, Love Hotels, Marriage, No Plot/Plotless, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Reunion Sex, Tender Sex, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-18 14:38:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Facing down death in a virtual-reality-turned-real Kazuto can do, has done multiple times over; looking up the location of a love hotel with the full intention of making use of it is a whole new kind of terrifying for him to consider." Asuna and Kazuto reaffirm their connection after their reunion in the real world.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashanizer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashanizer/gifts).



Asuna takes the lead.

Kazuto is grateful to her for that. He feels a little foolish about it -- there’s something inherently ridiculous, he thinks, about walking in the wake of a girl maneuvering along the sidewalk on a pair of crutches -- but gratitude wins out, since he has no idea where they’re going and no confidence in his own ability to get them there even if he did. The mere idea of doing any kind of a search for the business they’re heading towards makes his face flush crimson just at the bare idea of it; he has no real idea how he’s going to manage the necessary discussion that will come at the front desk. Facing down death in a virtual-reality-turned-real he can do, has done multiple times over; looking up the location of a love hotel with the full intention of making use of it is a whole new kind of terrifying for him to consider.

Asuna moves relatively quickly, under the circumstances. Kazuto had expected this portion of their trip to stretch to an infinity, with the minutes unfolding long with the joint effect of anticipation and rising panic to stretch them beyond their normal bounds. But it’s the opposite, in practice; even with Asuna’s necessarily slower pace Kazuto finds they cross the blocks of distance with alarming speed, until he’s more startled than anything else when Asuna says “Here,” with her voice pitched to clear, careful intent. “This is it.”

Kazuto looks up. His gaze had been fixed on the sidewalk, his focus wholly given over to the whirl of consideration in his thoughts; he hasn’t seen any of their surroundings for several minutes, he thinks, doesn’t even have a sense of what part of town they’re in. He can feel his face darkening as he lifts his head, can feel embarrassment ready to settle over his shoulders as he sees the front of the indicated building; but there’s none of the gaudy signs he was braced for, none of the flashing lights and brilliant colors he had always pictured from this kind of establishment. There’s just a simple exterior, the front lined with the curtain-covered windows that make the array of rooms inside clear, and a sign attached to the front door with discreet lettering to clarify the type of business. It’s surprisingly straightforward, nothing like the gauntlet of embarrassment Kazuto had been expecting to brave; and “Come on,” Asuna is saying, moving herself forward with the lopsided pace her healing legs demand of her. She pauses at the door, tipping her head to look back over her shoulder and raise an eyebrow. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

Kazuto _does_ flush, at that. “ _No_ ,” he says, a little too fast and a little too shrill; but it’s an answer, at least, and more importantly Asuna’s words spur him to act, to move forward in a rush that is only barely a walk more than a run. He’s at Asuna’s side by the time she’s reaching for the handle, ready to catch his fingers against the edge of the door to hold the weight of it open for her. Their sleeves drag against each other, his wrist bumps hers; Asuna’s lashes flutter, her head dips down so her hair falls in front of her face. Kazuto’s breath catches, his shoulders tense on realization; but Asuna is letting her hand fall away so she can handle her crutches and make her way inside, and Kazuto is left to hold the door open for her without having a chance to offer any kind of reassurance.

He’s impressed by how calm she looks, with how badly her hand was shaking against his.

She takes the lead to the front desk without waiting for him; by the time Kazuto has collected himself enough to trail her into the room she’s at the counter, her hands braced against the grips of her crutches and her chin lifted so her hair falls in a shining wave down the whole of her back. It’s beautiful, even in the fainter lighting inside instead of the warm sunlight they’ve just come in from; for a moment Kazuto can remember the feel of that hair underneath his hands, can remember the fall of it spread out across familiar bedsheets left behind in the crumbled past of SAO. He blinks, startled out of the present moment by the hazy heat of recollection, and at the counter: “We’d like a room,” Asuna is saying, her voice as clear and unflinching as her movement.

Kazuto can feel his face heat. He can’t help it; no matter how many times he tells himself not to be he can’t help but be embarrassed by so overtly admitting what their intentions are to what amounts to a complete stranger behind the counter. But the woman standing at the register barely even glances at him, doesn’t offer any of the raised-eyebrow smirking or unsubtle commentary he was afraid of; she just nods and reaches to tap a few buttons against the register. “How long?”

Asuna clears her throat. She doesn’t look at Kazuto at all; there’s not so much as a flicker of an eyelash in his direction. “Four hours,” she says.

“Very good,” the woman behind the counter says, and rings up the cost. Kazuto thinks in a moment he’s going to spontaneously combust with the force of his embarrassment; the only relief, and that minor, is that Asuna is coloring too, that her cheeks are darkening with the faintest indication of self-consciousness as she ducks her head to produce the necessary money from her bag. She pays the woman on the other side of the counter, receives a handful of change and a key in return, and by the time she’s turning back to return to where Kazuto is standing as if frozen by the door she’s regained her composure in exchange for that brief flush.

“Third floor,” she says, offering him the key with the number stamped in neat lines against the back. Kazuto takes it, curling his fingers close around the metal so Asuna can return her grip to her crutches and resume her forward movement towards the elevator around the corner from the front desk. Kazuto follows her, his face hot and his hand clammy, but his hold on the key is certain, and inside his chest he can feel some portion of that self-conscious stress unravelling into the tentative beginnings of what he thinks, now, he can consider excitement.

It’s a short elevator ride. Kazuto thinks they might have taken the stairs, were it not for Asuna’s as-yet-unsteady legs; as it is they’re inside the space for less than a minute, with hardly any time at all for the uncomfortable silence of awkward anticipation to form between them. Asuna doesn’t look at Kazuto, or at least she isn’t any of the times he sneaks a sideways glance at her; her gaze is fixed forward, her expression as carefully focused as it was downstairs at the front desk. Kazuto is grateful to her for that; it’s easier to tell himself to calm down when she’s such a picture of composure, even when his fingers remember the tremor of her hand at the front door. Asuna might be as nervous as he is but she’s doing a far better job of covering it up; and if she can muster that calm resolve, surely he can too. He fixes his attention on it for the whole of the elevator ride, thinking through all the details of squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw; and then the elevator dings to announce their arrival on the third floor, and the doors slide open with a whisper of noise, and Kazuto’s calm disintegrates all at once.

It’s a short hallway. There’s a double line of doors, one on each side, with nothing to distinguish one from another except the number printed against the plate over each handle; the whole space is so utterly silent Kazuto wonders about the soundproofing on each room. Except of course it must be good, he realizes a moment later, it would hardly be romantic to make your way to a room past...and his face goes so crimson he has to duck his head and wish that he had left his hair long as it was when he woke up from SAO, just for the sake of having something to hide behind.

“Here we are,” Asuna says, drawing to a stop in front of one of the doors. She’s going pink again, like she was downstairs, but her lips are pressed together into the appearance of composure, at least, and her voice doesn’t tremble at all however much her heart may be fluttering. Kazuto stops next to her, looking up to stare at the blank door that promises them the privacy they’ve been so desperately in need of for so long; it’s a strange thought, to realize that they did finally make it here, that after the years of waiting in a game and the last few months of Asuna’s rehabilitation in the hospital that they have finally, finally found their way to this point, with each other, in the structure of the real world that Kazuto still finds overwhelming, sometimes, when he thinks about it very long. It seems unreal, far less real in the moment than any of Kazuto’s memories of SAO and their life within it; and then Asuna clears her throat, and says “Kazuto?”

Kazuto blinks and turns to Asuna at once, his face heating with self-consciousness and nervous anticipation for what’s to come. “Asuna,” he says, and closes his mouth to swallow deliberately. “What is it?”

Asuna’s gaze slides sideways onto him; but her eyes are cast down, her focus is on his hand instead of his face. She lifts her head to gesture with her chin without easing her hold on the crutches keeping her upright. “You have the room key.”

Kazuto doesn’t think he’s ever gone so red so quickly in his entire life. “ _Oh_ ,” he says, and ducks his head down as he lifts his hand and uncurls his fingers from the weight of the key warmed from the grip of his tight hold around it. The metal is radiant against his fingers; there’s the imprint of the the edges lining the inside of his knuckles and pressed against his palm. “Um. Yeah. Right.” He steps forward to take charge of unlocking the door, his face still flushed crimson with embarrassment at his need for Asuna’s reminder, and he’s still blushing when the door comes open and he takes the lead forward into the room so he can hold the door for Asuna.

It’s not as garish as he had been afraid it would be. This isn’t an enormous surprise, given how restrained the front office is; there’s still a wider array of bottles against the top of the nightstand alongside the bed than Kazuto can imagine being useful, and several drawers within it that he only glances at before looking away and doing his best to not wonder about them. But the lighting is gentle, a warm glow of gold instead of a harsh red or too-dim orange, and the rest of the furniture in the room -- a loveseat along one side, a chair in the corner, and of course the oversized bed -- is simple in design, smooth lines and dark blankets and generally soothing and inviting instead of overwhelming. Kazuto is grateful to that too, as Asuna follows him into the room with the slower pace required by her crutches; and then she’s moving into the space, and Kazuto lets the door go to swing shut, and they’re left alone in the room.

Asuna doesn’t look back at him right away. She’s looking around the room, taking stock of their surroundings with careful attention; Kazuto wonders if she’s actually curious, or if she’s trying to buy herself time to catch her breath from the same nervous rush his own has found. A lock of her hair is falling forward over her shoulder, the loop of it catching at her shirt and sliding farther against the fabric as she turns her head; Kazuto finds himself staring at the shift of it, his nervous attention clinging to the slow motion of it coming free as Asuna moves. Her shoulder shifts, the strand catches against the collar of her shirt; and it’s just slipping free to fall across the fabric when Asuna turns back to look at Kazuto, her attention pulled back as if she can feel the weight of his stare on her. Kazuto’s gaze lifts, his focus coming up to Asuna’s face again; and her cheeks are flushing dark, her forehead is creasing on tension as her mouth draws into a frown.

“Don’t _stare_ ,” she snaps, and it’s only then that Kazuto realizes what his idle attention must have looked like, only then that he processes where his gaze was lingering as Asuna’s hair fell across the front of her shirt. He can feel his face go hot, the color spreading out to stain his skin at least as flushed-embarrassed as Asuna’s own; but he doesn’t have a chance to explain himself, Asuna is already ducking her head so her hair falls into a curtain in front of her face.

“It’s not like you have to keep your distance,” she says, so softly Kazuto has to struggle to hear the words she’s offering. “That’s what we’re here for, right?”

She’s still blushing so red it takes Kazuto a moment to make sense of the implication of her words. Her head is ducked forward, her words are coming at a whisper; for a second he thinks she’s telling him off for his unthinking attention. But then he catches up with the end of her sentence, his adrenaline-stressed thoughts parse out the implication of her words; and now he really _is_ red, he thinks his entire body is going crimson as if with a permanent sunburn.

“Oh,” Kazuto says. His voice is still higher than he wishes it was; it makes him sound breathless and uncertain, as if this really is their first time together and not just their first time in the physical world. “Um.”

Asuna huffs an exhale. “Don’t be silly,” she says, her head still ducked down so she offers the words to her feet; and then she lifts her chin by an inch and her gaze cuts sideways through the fall of her hair to meet Kazuto’s. Her cheeks are still red, her forehead still creased; her lip shifts, trembling for a moment before she catches her teeth at the curve to brace it to stillness. “Aren’t you going to come and kiss your wife?”

She’s trying to be teasing. Kazuto can hear it at the back of her words, can hear the struggle Asuna is going through to achieve some measure of self-confident amusement for her voice. But her words tremble in her throat, shaking on nerves until her question comes out more sincere than otherwise; and for a brief, startling moment, Kazuto can see all the self-conscious shyness he’s been feeling reflected back in the way Asuna is looking through her hair at him.

It’s strange, how much that helps. Asuna has seemed so pulled-together for this whole expedition that even the brief giveaways to her actual stress are easy to ignore; it’s made Kazuto feel inadequate, overwhelmed, like he’s expected to produce the same kind of self-assurance Asuna is wearing so easily and he so rarely feels in himself. To have Asuna blushing, and nervous, and as clearly uncertain as Kazuto feels -- it eases some of the panic across his shoulders, undoes some of the strain in his body, and when he breathes out it takes most of his stress with it, leaving him shaky and shy but warm, more than anything else, his whole body hot through and through with the weight of Asuna’s self-assumed title.

“Asuna,” Kazuto says, his voice breaking over the other’s name for a completely different reason, now; and if he was stalled still before his body is making up for it, is moving him forward to stride over the distance between himself and Asuna in the middle of the floor. She’s turning back to look at him, lifting her head so he can see the color of her eyes, so he can see the shift of her mouth as she lets her lip slide free of her teeth; and Kazuto reaches out, and slides his fingers into the weight of Asuna’s hair, and leans in to catch her lips with his.

It’s always surprising to him, how different this feels. He can remember years of time spent together, can remember waking in the morning to the warmth of Asuna’s mouth at his and the slow pull of her smile as he roused to consciousness; he can remember the casual weight of their lips against the other’s as one of them stepped out for the day, the act made soft and easy and unthinking by much repetition. But it’s different, like this, different to have it in reality; Asuna’s mouth feels warmer, feels softer, like she’s herself but somehow _more_ , more real and more present and more intimate even than they ever managed to attain within the boundaries of the game. Kazuto can feel an infinity of detail against his lips; the shift of Asuna’s breathing as she turns her head into the kiss, the tiny dry spot at the corner of her mouth where the wind chapped the soft of her lips, the warm wet of her mouth against his clearer than it ever quite managed to be within the structure of the life they lived together, before now. It’s intoxicating, a dizzying array of sensation more than Kazuto can easily process under the circumstances, and he loses himself to it as immediately now as he has every time they’ve managed the rare opportunity to indulge in an uninterrupted kiss since Asuna’s waking. He thinks he could stay like this for hours, for days, that he could spend a lifetime learning the fit of Asuna’s mouth against his lips and the feel of Asuna’s hair against his palms and still never be satisfied, that he would still have more to learn and more to lose himself in; and he can, now, he thinks, they have what feels like an infinity of privacy to themselves and all the time they could hope for to rediscover each other, to experience all that they had before all over again, the familiar made wholly new by the uncharted sensations that reality has to offer to them both.

Asuna is the one who pulls away, after some time, who draws back from the fit of Kazuto’s mouth to hers and gasps an inhale that indicates her plan to speak before she’s granted any words to her subject. “Kazuto,” is the first thing she says, and Kazuto can feel every inch of his body go warm with that sound, with the resonance of his actual name in Asuna’s voice instead of the avatar that carried his identity for so long. Her lashes flutter as she looks up to meet Kazuto’s own heavy-lidded gaze; her mouth is flushed redder than it usually is, the color of it darkened by the friction of Kazuto’s mouth against hers. The thoughts heats Kazuto’s blood and burns the flicker of desire down his spine; but Asuna is ducking her head rather than watching his lips part on the heat of his breathing and lifting a hand to pull the weight of her hair forward and off the back of her neck. “Help me unfasten my shirt?”

Kazuto wasn’t expecting this. He should have been, probably; SAO provided him with more than enough experience with exactly this task, and after all it must be something of a struggle for Asuna to manage her clothes and the crutches she still needs to keep herself upright at the same time. But he wasn’t, wasn’t thinking about the next step at all, and the idea of what he’s about to do blows all the air from his lungs in a rush even before he’s managed to ease his hold on Asuna’s hair enough to reach out for the tiny button holding the collar of her shirt closed at the back of her neck.

“God,” he breathes as his fingers tremble against the fabric, as his hands struggle to manage the intricacy of maneuvering the tiny button free of its fastening. His voice is shaking too; he has to close his mouth and swallow hard before he can compose himself back to calm, and even then it’s a struggle to get the words to come out coherently. “This is crazy.”

“It’s not that crazy,” Asuna tells him, her voice sharp and snapping on the retort; but she’s not lifting her head, and when she takes a breath Kazuto can hear it shuddering in her throat before she lets her exhale go. “Just because it was in the game doesn’t mean it wasn’t us making the decision.”

“I know,” Kazuto protests. “It’s just…it’s been so long since SAO.” He swallows again. It helps, a little. “I feel like I haven’t really seen you in months.”

Asuna huffs a laugh. “Yeah,” she says, and lets her weight tip forward, just slightly, just enough for her head to bump against the midline of Kazuto’s chest. Her hair swings forward to catch at his shirt; Kazuto wonders if she can hear how hard his heart is beating, wonders if she could feel it if she turned her head to press her ear against him. “I know what you mean.”

“And everything feels different, here.” Kazuto gets the topmost of Asuna’s buttons done and lets it fall open against the back of her neck before moving on to the next. “More... _real_ , kind of.”

“Mm,” Asuna hums, agreement soft in the back of her throat. “We’re still us, though.”

Kazuto takes a breath, feels the way the air sticks to a knot in his chest. He has to duck his head into a nod before he can find voice enough to speak; Asuna’s buttons slide free under his hold.

“Yeah,” he says, and lets his hands slide from Asuna’s back to her shoulders, weighting his fingers into gentle care against her collarbones. “Asuna.” Asuna lifts her head, the wide bright of her eyes coming back up to meet Kazuto’s gaze as her hair falls back from her features. There’s details in her expression Kazuto never saw in the game, subtleties to the set of her mouth and flecks of color behind her eyes he never before realized were there; it’s like he’s seeing her for the first time, like he’s coming home after so long away he forgot even the simple familiarity of her face, as clear in his memory as his own. Kazuto’s heart aches, his chest strains over his breathing. “I love you.”

Asuna’s lashes dip, her mouth curves up on a sudden shift of happiness to match the color that glows across her face. “Kazuto,” she breathes, and she’s lifting her hand to touch Kazuto’s jacket, to give up some measure of stability so she can curl her fingers in against the fabric instead. “I love you.”

Kazuto lets his breath rush out of him, lets his attention slide down to the bottom edge of Asuna’s shirt hanging loose over her skirt. When he drops his hand to the hem he can catch the flutter of it in his fingers, can press his thumb against the silky give of it. “Can I…?”

Asuna ducks her head into a nod. “Please.”

Kazuto has to take a moment to steady himself, to untangle his breathing from the weight of his own anticipation and ease the tension from his fingers so he can trust himself to handle the delicate give of Asuna’s shirt in his hold. Asuna lets her grip on his jacket go as he reaches for her hips, as he collects the fall of her shirt under the slide of his fingers; and then he pulls, tugging the cloth up to bare the flat of her stomach, the dip of her waist, the pale lace at the bottom edge of her bra. It’s a smooth process up to her shoulders; then Asuna has to brace her grip on her crutches and duck her head to slide free of the open neckline of her shirt, has to balance herself on unsteady feet so she can slip first one arm and then the other free of the sleeves. It takes some maneuvering; for a few minutes Kazuto’s attention is held by the process of getting the fabric free of Asuna’s arms, of offering what support he can while Asuna is extricating herself. Then the shirt is loose, and Asuna is pushing her hair back behind her shoulders, and Kazuto is taking a breath, and looking down, and seeing Asuna before him.

There’s a lot to look at. She’s still wearing her bra, of course, and the stockings that cling close from the weight of her shoes up to the hem of her skirt; but there’s a whole expanse of pale skin in front of Kazuto, the line of her collarbones against the straps of her bra and the tension trembling against her stomach and the shadow of cleavage against the support of the bra across her chest. It’s all as it was, familiar territory for Kazuto’s memories of the game that was his life for so long; but it’s been months, now, a long span of time when he thought he might never have this again, might never have _Asuna_ again, and his breathing sticks in his chest from that as much as from the beauty of the girl before him and the immediacy of this moment in his life.

“Oh,” he says, and he’s reaching out to touch his fingers to the curve of Asuna’s waist, to fit his palm flush against the radiant heat of her skin. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Already?” Asuna teases gently; but her cheeks are flushed with pleasure as much as embarrassment, and when she ducks her head she’s smiling under the fall of her hair. “Don’t you want to see anything else?”

Kazuto huffs a laugh. “Yeah,” he says, and takes a half-step closer, near enough that the front of his jacket catches at Asuna’s bare skin and pulls a huff of air from her lips. “I kinda do.”

“Well then,” Asuna says, and lifts her head so she can toss her hair back and arch in to press closer against Kazuto’s chest. “You might as well stop wasting time then, don’t you think?”

Kazuto laughs at that, amusement spilling from his mouth even as his cheeks color to self-consciousness; and Asuna smiles too, her lips curving up on amusement as she gives Kazuto a look that is as much dare as invitation. Kazuto reaches to fit his fingers against the back of Asuna’s head, to steady her in place against the press of his mouth to hers; and he fits his other hand against her waist, sliding around and up her back so he can catch the clasp of her bra under his fingers. It’s easy to find, though it takes a moment for him to orient himself with the metal and fabric; but it’s only a heartbeat of delay, and then his thumb is pressing against the clasp, and the fastening opens for him as simply as that, without more than a breath of uncertainty.

Asuna huffs a laugh against Kazuto’s mouth, the sound as delighted as it is amused. “Have you been practicing?”

Kazuto shakes his head, too breathless on adrenaline to even think of demurring. “No,” he says at once. “Just thinking about it a lot.” That makes Asuna laugh again, the sound warm against Kazuto’s parted lips, and Kazuto lifts his hands to her shoulders, fitting his touch in against the curve of Asuna’s neck and trailing down over radiant-warm skin to reach her shoulders and the straps now loose across them. It’s easy to catch his fingers under the silky fabric, even if the thought of what he’s doing makes his heart beat painfully fast in his chest; and then Asuna’s bra is sliding off her shoulders, the fabric slipping over the tops of her arms, and she pulls away so she can work to struggle herself free of the straps. It’s something of a complicated process, Kazuto knows, and he’s thinking dizzily to help her when he blinks and looks down; but she’s just getting free of one side as he does, which leaves her bra to fall to one side, and all his attention to his original idea vanishes with the amount of skin left bare for his view.

He knows what Asuna looks like without her bra on. This shouldn’t be a surprise any more than the fit of her mouth against his or the dip of her waist under his touch is; but everything feels different, hot and hazy with desire and familiarity and affection all at once, and for the first moment all Kazuto can do is gasp for air and reach out to press his hands in against Asuna’s waist, to catch the pale of her skin in his palms while he stares at her. Her breasts are curving just above his touch, the soft weight of them dipping a little heavier than he remembers, maybe a little more pink than his memory provides; but then she’s flushed over her whole body, every inch of skin he can see coloring to rose under the fit of his hands and the attention of his gaze. Her nipples are taut before he’s touched them, hard points against the pale color encircling them; Kazuto wants to touch them, wants to touch her, wants to strip his own clothes off and pull Asuna in against him, to fit their bodies as close together as they ever were in the game, closer still, close enough to make up for the time spent apart, to override the shadow of unwanted fingertips against Asuna’s skin. Kazuto’s hold at her waist tightens, his eyes burn with something between appreciation and tears; he doesn’t know what he’s feeling, doesn’t know how to separate the pain of the past and the bliss of the present when they’re tangling so close together in him. In a minute he thinks he might start to cry, might drop to his knees and press his forehead to Asuna’s stomach and capitulate to the wave of remembered desperation; and then there’s a hand at his sleeve, and fingers closing around his elbow, and he gasps an inhale and looks up.

Asuna is looking at him. Her eyes are bright, her cheeks are flushed; she looks shy, a little uncertain of herself, a little bit embarrassed by his attention. But her mouth is curving on a smile, one corner drawing up a little higher than the other, and it only goes wider as Kazuto blinks himself into focus on her face, happiness spreading out over her whole expression until she seems to be glowing with it.

“This isn’t fair at all,” she observes once she has his attention, her gaze dropping from his face down to the sleeve she has caught in her hand. She lets her hold go but it’s only to flick at the front of the coat, where the zipper is still drawn up over Kazuto’s chest and towards his chin. “I don’t think you should get to leer at me when you don’t even have your coat off.” Kazuto’s cheeks darken, he opens his mouth in a half-formed attempt to protest this accusation; but Asuna is talking right over him, tossing her hair back in that way that always makes her look absolutely self-assured, no matter what she is or isn’t wearing. “Besides, it’s not very chivalrous of you to make me keep standing. I’m on _crutches_ , you know.”

“Ah,” Kazuto says, blinking hard as he tries to catch up to the teasing edge of Asuna’s words instead of losing himself in his own hazy appreciation of her body. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to sit down,” Asuna declares, and she’s moving as fast as she speaks, shifting away from Kazuto so she can get the space to move towards the bed. “Take your coat and shoes off at least, I don’t want you to get the sheets dirty.”

Kazuto stares after Asuna for a moment, watching the shift of her hair across her bare shoulders as she moves with surprising grace towards the bed; it’s only as she reaches the edge that she pauses to glance back over her shoulder, and only once he sees the laughter sparkling in her eyes and tight at her mouth that he actually makes sense of the words.

“Right,” he says, shaking his head to bring himself back to the present. “Yeah.” And he ducks his head at once, pulling at the zipper of his coat to get it open and off his shoulders before Asuna has to repeat her original request. He occupies himself with shedding his coat and shoes and socks while Asuna gets herself settled at the edge of the bed; Kazuto would like to watch, but he thinks he’d prefer to join her, and that means stripping off whatever extra clothing he has on. He hesitates over his shirt for a moment, wondering if he shouldn’t wait until he’s rejoined Asuna; but hers is already on the floor, and it doesn’t seem fair to leave himself more covered than she is already, so he strips it up over his head and drops it to join his jacket before looking back up towards the bed.

Asuna is waiting for him. She’s set her crutches aside, has left them leaning against the wall alongside the bed next to the shoes she’s worked off and set at the floor; she’s still in her skirt and stockings, with her legs folded under her where she’s sitting on the sheets. Her hair is falling loose over her shoulders; she has a hand up to work the strands free of the partial braid she usually maintains, is tugging the plait free as she watches Kazuto across the room. Her eyes come up to Kazuto’s face as he looks at her, her attention rising from his dropped shirt to meet his gaze; that brief spill of laughter is gone, now, replaced instead with heat behind her eyes enough to turn their usual clear color dark and shadowed with suggestion. It makes Kazuto’s mouth go dry, makes his body tense with anticipation; and then Asuna shifts against the bed, sliding herself backwards by an inch, and she lets her hand drop to touch the sheets next to her in a clear invitation.

“Well,” she says, and her voice is husky but she doesn’t try to clear it any more than she ducks her head to hide the color rising across her cheeks. “Aren’t you going to come over?”

Kazuto moves forward at once. Asuna’s words are almost a command, nearly bearing the weight of an order in the back of her throat; but he thinks he would have acted anyway, thinks the draw of Asuna’s hair falling to loose waves over the glowing curves of her body would be enough to urge him closer all on its own. He covers the distance in a few quick strides, his focus all on Asuna rather than on the floor beneath his feet, and when he reaches out for her Asuna is turning her head up, her lashes dipping shut into expectation as quickly as Kazuto gets a hand against the back of her neck and a knee weighting the bed alongside her hip.

“Asuna,” he breathes, that one word borne down with years of commitment, with months of desperation; and then he’s ducking closer, and his mouth is settling onto hers, and she’s parting her lips to him at once, making a surrender of the heat of her mouth as quickly as she lifts her hands to catch and brace at his shoulders. She tips them back, letting her weight urge Kazuto down towards the bed; and Kazuto follows, trailing the heat of Asuna’s skin and the dip of her lashes with the unthinking devotion he’s learned so well over all the time they had together and all the memories he’s had to make do with over the last span of months. He had thought he might never have this again, had thought Asuna would be lost to him forever; but she’s not lost, she’s here, arching up under him to press the curves of her body close to his, and they fit together as well here as they ever did in SAO. His hand fits at her waist, her fingers are sliding up into his hair; and Kazuto doesn’t need to think about this, doesn’t need to pause to make sense of the slide of his fingers down over Asuna’s hip and to the top edge of her skirt. He wonders briefly if he’s moving too fast, if this is too much to reach for too quickly; but Asuna has her thumb sliding into the beltloop of his jeans, Asuna is tipping her legs open under him as quickly as she reaches for the fly of his pants, and Kazuto doesn’t need to pause to be sure of her agreement.

“Here,” is what he says instead, the word all but meaningless for the heat that comes with it as he breaks away from Asuna’s mouth to look down at the effort he’s making with her skirt. The fabric is thin under his hands, he thinks he could push it up around her waist as easily as tug it off her; but he wants Asuna as she is, unencumbered by any kind of clothing between them, and that means the skirt has to come off. So he pushes instead, urging the give of the waistband down and over the curve of her hips; and Asuna arches up to meet him, curving her body off the soft of the bed to ease the motion. Kazuto rocks back over his heels as he draws her skirt down her thighs and against the angle of her knees; the only thing he regrets is losing the weight of her palm against his jeans as he pulls back far enough to slide the skirt along her calves and off of her feet. The skirt comes free, he drops it over the edge of the bed to be forgotten; and then he presses in again, sliding closer between the angle of Asuna’s knees so he can reach for the top of one of her stockings instead. Asuna lets herself relax back against the bed, slides her foot up higher to make a clean angle of her leg; and for a moment Kazuto is struck all over again by the way she looks in front of him, familiar and unknown at one and the same time until he feels dizzy from the force of it.

“Asuna,” he breathes as he draws the fabric down her thigh and over her knee, as he bares the length of her leg for the soft illumination of the light overhead. “You--you’re so beautiful.”

“Kazuto,” Asuna says, and there’s no teasing on her voice now, nothing but the soft sweet of affection Kazuto knows so well. When he looks back up she’s watching him watching her, her eyes soft and dark with affection and her mouth trembling against the curve of her smile, and Kazuto can’t imagine anyone in the world loving someone more than he loves her right now. He can see her throat shift as she swallows, can see the light overhead skim across her cheeks as she blinks, and when she speaks it’s like she’s giving voice to his own emotion, like the ache in his chest is finding voice for itself at her lips. “I love you.”

Kazuto’s breath rushes out of him at once, his lungs emptying themselves like he has to make space for the surge of warmth that swells against his ribs and fills every gap of space inside him. “I love you too,” he manages, feeling like the words are carried more on the need in him than because he truly has the air to give them voice; and then he has to lean back in, has to give over his attention to Asuna’s stockings so he can catch her mouth with his again. Asuna is more than willing to fall back to the bed, quick to settle a hand back at his shoulder and reach for the front of his jeans again; and whatever self-consciousness Kazuto might have felt before is gone, now, like it never existed at all, evaporating under the force of Asuna’s lips forming around that phrase made so familiar with all the time they’ve had together. This is just them, now, Asuna’s fingers unfastening the front of his pants and Kazuto pushing down Asuna’s stocking one-handed and without looking; they’re moving in perfect sync with each other, their actions as entirely suited to the other’s as the movement of their bodies in those battles they fought together. Asuna unfastens Kazuto’s jeans, slides her thumbs in under the weight of the denim and his boxers at once, and Kazuto lets her push them down and off his hips as he ducks his head to watch her stocking slide free, as Asuna draws her leg up so she can pull her foot loose of the delicate fabric. Kazuto doesn’t even feel self-conscious as he slips free of his clothes, as the full heat of his arousal comes under Asuna’s attention; he’s lost to the heat, lost to the familiarity of this, because this is how they should be, this is where they belong, together over the soft give of a bed under Asuna’s shoulders as she sits up to urge his pants down and off his legs and as he reaches to catch his fingers under the edge of her panties. Asuna shoves his jeans to the side and over the edge of the bed, freeing her hands as she falls back to the sheets; and she’s reaching down too, matching Kazuto’s movement with her own so they slide her last remaining clothing down and off her in a single shared movement. Asuna brings both legs up towards her chest, draws her feet free of the fabric so Kazuto can let it fall into the heap they’ve made of the rest of their clothes; and then it’s just them, Asuna and Kazuto together, and Asuna is letting her legs settle around Kazuto’s hips, and Kazuto is taking a breath to brace himself, and they’re back where they’re meant to be at last, where Kazuto hadn’t thought he would ever be again.

“Oh,” he says, and there’s no meaning to the word but the breath it carries, the sigh of relief it lets him take, like he’s clearing his body of the tension of all that time spent apart. “Asuna.”

Asuna’s lashes flutter, her breath rushes out of her. “Kazuto,” she says, and then they’re moving at once, Asuna pulling Kazuto down towards her as Kazuto tips forward to press close to Asuna’s body beneath him. Her skin is radiant with heat, like she’s glowing just for the touch of Kazuto against her; but then, Kazuto is just as warm, he feels like all the heat in the world is coalescing to fit under his skin, to make a second sun of the blood in his veins. Asuna shuts her eyes, and tips her head up for the press of Kazuto’s mouth; and Kazuto follows her lead, letting his vision dip to darkness so he can lose himself to the soft of Asuna’s lips against his and the curve of her body pressing flush against his own. Her knees are weighting at his hips, her legs drawing him down to fit against her; and this is the same, this is familiar, Kazuto would know this anywhere, something of reflex and something of experience and all Asuna, all his body rocking forward and her hips coming up and the two of them coming together in one smooth, gliding thrust. Kazuto makes some sound in the back of his throat, heat and relief and satisfaction all at once; but Asuna is moaning over his tongue, her lips parting on the spill of heat past her lips as her whole body flexes tight around Kazuto as he slides forward into her. She’s hot around him, tension and friction and slick, welcoming heat; and Kazuto feels like he’s falling back into himself, like he’s becoming whole again in a way he had forgotten what it felt like to be.

“ _Oh_ ,” he gasps, and that’s all he can offer, because he’s moving, now, reflex sweeping out over him to take control and urge him forward into the instinctive rhythm his body craves and his memory recalls. Asuna’s thighs tighten at his hips, flexing for a moment of pressure that makes him wonder distantly if this is too much, if he should go slower; but her head is tipping back, the pale line of her throat curving on the shimmer of sound in the back of her throat, and Kazuto knows that too, even if it lacked some measure of realistic resonance filtered through the structure of the game system where he last heard it. He tips his head down, fits his mouth against the tremor of motion in Asuna’s throat; and this time he can feel the detail of her not-quite-voiced laugh, can feel the pressure of it thrum against his lips as he moves forward and into her.

It’s dizzying, to be this close. Kazuto remembers the fit of Asuna’s legs around him, remembers the weight of her fingers caught in his hair and pressed against the flex of his shoulders; but it was different, before, there was some unstated detail missing, some texture of the sheets under him or some fragment of the sweet smell of Asuna’s skin that was missing from his attention. He didn’t notice the absence then -- with nothing to compare to, their time together in the game was the greatest experience of his life -- but now it’s intoxicating, like he’s gained an extra sense that he didn’t have before, that he didn’t even know to miss. This is the way Asuna sounds when he moves his hips like this, this is the way her breasts shift against his chest when she arches up into him; that’s the feel of her fingernails catching against the soft short of his hair, that’s the flutter of her body tensing around him in answer to the friction of his motion pressing into her. They’re pressed close against each other, their bodies fitting together at every point they can; and Kazuto can feel the time apart disintegrating, can feel the shadow of terror and fear of loss that haunts his memories fading away and back, giving ground to the glow of having Asuna under and around him again. This is how they were meant to be, he thinks, this is where they were always supposed to end up: in each other’s arms, lost in each other’s heat, with Asuna’s breathing pulling into the beginnings of moans under the press of his lips and his own heart beating so fast in his chest Kazuto thinks he may never be able to slow it, may never settle back into anything but this overwhelming hyper-awareness. He’s here, now, every heartbeat a lifetime, every breath a tapestry of sensation and reality and intimacy so sharp it pricks tears at the back of his eyes; and then Asuna gasps a breath, and says “Kazuto,” and there’s enough strain on her voice for Kazuto to know what she’s asking for without more words than that.

“Yeah,” he says, and “Asuna” because her name tastes like sugar on his tongue, because he can’t keep the syllables from shaping themselves around the affection tensing so tight around his heart. He pulls away from Asuna’s neck, braces himself up on an elbow instead; and Asuna is reaching for his neck with both hands, catching and steadying herself with the same ease Kazuto remembers from uncounted memories of a bed, a house, a life shared together. It’s like returning home after a long time away, rediscovering all the details he had lost to the haze of time; except he never had these details, before, never knew the slight point of Asuna’s front canine as she bites her lip or the shadow of her lashes against her cheeks or the scattering of freckles over her skin. Kazuto can’t look away, can’t stop relearning all the specifics of that so-familiar face; and then he fits his hand between their bodies, and presses his fingers in against the soft heat between Asuna’s legs, and Asuna’s lashes dip, her head tips to the side as she shudders a helpless exhale radiant on heat. Kazuto has learned the details of this too -- the right angle to find for his fingertips, the counterpoint movement of his wrist and hips falling into a new kind of pattern all their own -- and they come back to him instantly, as instinctively as his body fit against Asuna’s. Asuna is breathing faster, her chest shifting hard with every inhale she takes; Kazuto can feel her fingers tightening at the back of his neck, can see the tension creasing against her forehead. Her teeth are pressing at her lip, bearing down against the soft of it as Kazuto moves over her and she trembles to tension beneath him; and Kazuto can see the crest of heat sweeping up over her, can hear it in the gasp of her inhales and watch it in the color against her cheeks.

“Oh,” she says, and then her expression eases, her mouth falls open; for a moment everything is calm, slack on the relief of anticipation. “Oh, I…” and then, at once, as her head tips back and her throat opens up: “ _Kazuto_ ” and Asuna’s coming around him, whimpering through tiny shuddering moans as the whole of her body tenses in helpless convulsions around Kazuto still moving into her. Kazuto’s breath spills out of him at once, the heat helpless at his lips; but he keeps moving, working Asuna through the long tremors of her orgasm while the weight of his own desire settles into his stomach and prickles electric up his spine. Asuna is quivering under him, her legs tight at his hips and her hands bracing at his shoulders like she’s trying to hold herself still against the shudders of pleasure running through her; and then she sighs an exhale, and the tension in her eases, and she opens her eyes to look up at Kazuto, and Kazuto knows he’s lost at once.

“Oh god,” he says, “Asuna” and that’s all he has time for before he’s ducking his head in against Asuna’s shoulder and groaning into a breathless spill of heat as sensation sweeps over him to eclipse all his awareness with pleasure. His body is shaking, his rhythm fractured; but Asuna has a hand in his hair, Asuna is murmuring incoherent encouragement at his ear, and for a moment it’s enough to let it all go, to let the heat and the relief and the pleasure sweep aside anything but the immediate reality of them, here, together.

Kazuto comes back to himself slowly, like he’s rising through a haze to meet the golden warmth of sunlight weighting against his skin. There’s soft hair against his parted lips, warm skin underneath him; at the back of his head there’s the press of gentle fingers sliding idly through his hair. He blinks slowly, taking the time to fit himself back into the space of his own body; and then he draws his arm free from between himself and Asuna so he can fit his hold in against her side instead and press his fingers in against the edge of her shoulderblade. Asuna shifts at once, without Kazuto asking, so he can catch his arm around her, and for a moment they stay like that, Asuna’s fingers in Kazuto’s hair and Kazuto holding Asuna as close against him as he can get. There’s the sound of Kazuto breathing against Asuna’s shoulder, the soft hiss of Asuna’s exhales still audible with heat; and then, at once: “Kazuto,” Asuna’s voice as gentle on Kazuto’s name as her fingers are in his hair.

Kazuto sighs against Asuna’s shoulder. “Yeah,” he says. “I love you, Asuna.”

He can feel Asuna laugh under him, can feel her fingers tighten at the back of his head; when she turns her head it’s to press a kiss against his forehead, to settle her lips into brief friction at Kazuto’s skin. Kazuto turns his head up into the contact, sighing satisfaction against Asuna’s throat, and when she smiles it’s gentle against his hair. “I love you too, Kazuto.”

Kazuto has never been so happy to be home.


End file.
